100 PERCENT LET / DEMOLITION STARTS / OPENING 2014

13 - 08 - 01Press Release

GAMES, SPORT AND MUCH MORE IN THE NEW “HOMEPARK WALLAU”

Whether you’re looking for kids’ bikes or cameras: Visitors to IKEA Wallau can look forward to a wider, family-friendly range. The existing retail building (previously Toys R Us) is being demolished and a two-storey building will be built in the same site, in which toys, baby equipment, entertainment electronics and sports equipment will be collected.
Over the coming months, the first diggers could start work on the extended IKEA retail park in Wallau, which will open under the new name of “HOMEPARK Wallau”. Inter IKEA Centre Deutschland (IICD) has already submitted the relevant building application. As soon as planning permission has been received, construction work will begin. The opening is planned for spring 2014. IICD is investing about 17 million Euros in the site with one of the first IKEA furniture stores in Germany and the headquarters of Germany’s IKEA operations. About 1,000 people – 360 in the furniture store and 640 in the headquarters – currently work on the site. An additional 80 workplaces will be created with the new retail park.
“We are looking forward to our long-awaited retail park gaining momentum,” says Rainer Bastians, managing director of IICD. All three tenants have signed their leases: These are sports supplier Decathlon, electronics retailer Expert and toy and baby equipment supplier Spiele Max.
As a result, 100 percent of the plots for the retail park have been leased. “We will begin demolishing the existing building in mid-August,” says Bastians. The total size of the retail stores is about 9,700 m² (gross floor area); no new areas are going to be developed. A photovoltaics plant will provide environmentally friendly energy.
The IICD, a sister company of IKEA, develops retail parks with a wide range of home and home furnishing products. Retail parks have also been opened on the IKEA sites of Hamburg-Moorfleet, Oldenburg, Essen, Cologne-Godorf, Hofheim-Wallau, Koblenz, Ulm, Mannheim and Saarlouis up to now. Another retail park will open at the IKEA site in Würzburg, while the first large IKEA shopping centre is being developed in Lübeck at the moment.

Inter IKEA Centre Group

Since 2001, Inter IKEA Centre Group has owned, developed and managed shopping centres in partnership with IKEA furniture stores. The company has almost 30 retail sites, more than a million square metres of developed retail space and plans for more than 20 new projects in Europe and China. In all our shopping centres, there is a strong mix of tenants made of up international retailers and local brands. The IKEA furniture store expands our catchment area, making us attractive to visitors within an hour’s drive. This combination has proven to be successful for all our stakeholders, especially our customers and tenants.